Hey, what's so interesting?

Wow! Now I see. It's beautiful.

These pictures make me think of perspective and how it influences our relationships with our clients. When we first start working with clients we are in what we, at Imagine, call the “golden phase” of the relationship. Other than knowing the key players, we don’t know the office politics, the dynamics, nor much about the corporate culture. This gives us the ability to bring new and unfiltered ideas to the table. We are essentially “on the outside looking in”m seeing them as the world does. We’re careful to understand what we see and to keep an inventory of our observations.

As we time goes by we start to learn the inside scoop, so to speak. And this is necessary, because when we’re creating an e-learning course, a high-stakes presentation, or a video we need to become fully aware of the content, as well as the teaching styles of our clients. In fact, it’s so important to us, we learn the subject very well, enough to have Mike at ITI say that Susan could teach one of their courses. And in the process we learn how our clients see themselves. The trick is being able to learn the “inside scoop” well enough to teach it and still keep a clean perspective.

Obviously, our perspective can never be as unfiltered as it was in the beginning of the relationship, but we work at staying  “on the outside looking in” as much as possible. We refer back to the “inventory” of our initial observations so we can merge this with the knowledge we gain from the inside to help keep our clients on track. This is a beautiful thing and helps create a long-term relationship with our clients.

Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points, was the speaker. He used a bare-bones slide deck which mostly consisted of keywords he wrote as he spoke (gad what happens when no one knows how to write in cursive anymore!). He discussed about the feelings shared by audiences and presenters alike that power point reduces the presenter to “reading the slides”.  Symptoms: a sensation that the presenter could have mailed in the presentation, a presenter feeling tethered to a presentation and losing spontaneity, unable to change direction when the audience requires it, etc., etc. 

Cliff’s antidote?

What was Cliff’s suggestion for change? Speaking from the heart rather than from the mind: emotion not data, connection not lists.  This is certainly not a new idea but what was different about Cliff’s idea what that he actually spelled out how this could be done. For example, Cliff has done this in a court room presentation (how do you distill 5000 documents into something accessible) and in a scientific forum where “just the facts and evidence” are expected. 

The Challenge

Cliff challenged his audience to dare to try this approach.  As he said, we have all suffered so long: “we are all boring each other to tears. We are all doing it the way we are doing it because that is the way we are doing it.  Sometimes it just takes courage to pull out the emotional stuff from all the quantitative information. Find the heart of the emotion of the decision that has to be made…..” 

He’s right that it will take courage to buck the expectation of the old way in favor of minimalism and a true connection. This is something that I am going to try….

This was the second in a series of Outstanding Presentation Workshops hosted and moderated by the very modest Helen Finkelstein. Thank you Helen! For more information and upcoming dates:   Helen Finkelstein). 

Ruth with her Dog Daisy

Ruth is a tile artist who has worked with Jackie Peterson, author of “Better, Smarter, Richer”. You can see Ruth’s work here: www.ruthfrancesgreenberg.com Lucia took Ruth’s picture to include in Jackie’s presentation which we designed to help Jackie promote her book. You can learn more about Jackie’s book here: www.bettersmarterricher.com.

This child is amazing.  At three years of age, he understands the music as well as any adult.  He is not just mimicking a conductor, he is actually conducting – anticipating changes in tempo and volume, cueing different sections of the orchestra.  The only time he acts like the child he is, is at the end when he loses his baton and breaks down into giggles.  I have watched this video many times and still find it compelling.  I hope his parents give him every opportunity to pursue his incredible gift.

deep red iris in the dead of winter